It's been a while but as life gets busy with work and family, the Values of a Marketing Leader podcast took a back seat. To remind you I'm still here and alive, here's a different type of episode to get listening to.

This one's different in another way too. For once, I'm not the one asking the questions.

This is a conversation I had with my CEO, Dr Phil Squire, the man who gave me the opportunity to do the master's in the first place. He invited me onto his Sales Transformation Mastercast after I finished my dissertation, and sat me down to tell the whole story properly. Which, sitting across from the person who started all of this for me, felt a little nerve-wracking if I'm honest.

We go right back to the beginning. The uncomfortable admission that I'd never had a marketing leader I truly aspired to be. How CrossFit, of all things, kept teaching me more about leadership than any marketing job ever had and ended up becoming the foundation of a framework. The best part of a year spent interviewing 40+ senior marketing leaders, and the slow, messy process of making sense of what they actually told me.

It's also where I first talked through the IIOE framework out loud: Integrity at the centre, with Impact, Originality and Empowerment around it, and the three or four weeks I spent staring at a whiteboard before it clicked how those values connected to what our customers said they wanted in return.

If Episode 1 was me telling you the story, this is me being asked to defend it. And in many ways, it's where the podcast you're listening to right now was born. You can read more about the research project and some of my thoughts here: https://medium.com/@eddieguevarra.mktg

No guest this week. Just me and a coffee.

I've been waiting to tell this story properly. Not the polished version, not the abstract. The actual one. Where the imposter syndrome hit hard. Where CrossFit kept teaching me more about leadership than any marketing job I'd ever had. Where I nearly didn't press send on that first outreach email to a CMO.

This episode covers the whole journey. From realising the gap in my own career to spending the best part of a year interviewing 40+ senior marketing leaders, watching people pause mid-sentence to dig up a memory they hadn't thought about in years, and slowly making sense of over 250 mentions of different values.

It's also the episode where I explain the IIOE framework in full — not the bullet point version, the real version. Why integrity sits at the centre. Why CrossFit of all things helped me see it clearly. And the moment one interviewee challenged me on whether values even matter for success.

If you listened to the trailer and wondered what's behind all of this, here's your answer.

You can read more about the research project and some of my thoughts here: https://medium.com/@eddieguevarra.mktg

Look, I get it. There are thousands of marketing podcasts out there. The last thing the world needs is another one telling you which tactics to use or what the algorithm wants this week.

This isn't that.

I've never had a marketing leader I truly looked up to. Thirteen years in marketing, and not one. That gap bugged me for a long time—until I decided to do something about it.

In this trailer, I explain why I spent the best part of a year interviewing 40+ CMOs, VPs, and senior marketers about the values that actually shape how they lead. What emerged was the IIOE framework (Integrity, Impact, Originality, Empowerment) and a whole new way of thinking about marketing leadership.

This podcast isn't about tactics. It's about the stuff nobody talks about. The beliefs that guide how you lead when there's no playbook.

If that sounds like something you've been looking for, hit subscribe.

In this episode:

• Why I created this podcast (and why it's not like the others)
• The question that kicked off my MSc research
• What the IIOE framework is and where it came from
• What you can expect from future episodes

You can read more about the research project and some of my thoughts here: https://medium.com/@eddieguevarra.mktg